


Red Velvet

by ratherbeblue



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 02:43:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherbeblue/pseuds/ratherbeblue
Summary: Lup and Barry’s wedding is as beautiful as Taako always knew it would be.





	Red Velvet

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Finale AU where everyone lives and is happy thank you.

Lup and Barry’s wedding is as beautiful as Taako always knew it would be. Their whole hodgepodge of a family had gotten together to help out and everything had, surprisingly, gone off without a hitch. Magnus had carved them fine, gorgeous rings, Merle took care of the bouquets and the huge floral canopy at the end of the aisle, Davenport created twinkling light to appear above the venue, making everything look ethereal, and in the weeks leading up to it, both Taako and Lucretia had taken part in their own personal version of fantasy Say Yes to The Dress for Lup.

And now it’s finally the day, Merle and Lucretia are on crowd control, and Magnus and Davenport have Barry sequestered away somewhere while Taako makes sure Lup has everything she needs on her big day.

“I’m so happy for you, Lulu.” Taako tells her while he brushes out her hair, his voice low and sincere. “You deserve this.”

She laughs openly, and Taako can see her impish grin in the mirror in front of them.

“Aww, Taako! If I wasn’t so happy you’d be making me barf right now.”

“Hey! Let me pretend to be nice for once, please!” He lightly tugs on her hair in childish warning before beginning to twist it into a braided crown he can weave flowers into later. He leaves a pocket of silence in the action, forgoing their usual lightning quick banter in favor of a moment of lucidity. “And I mean it, you and Barold? Kind of the dream team there, sis.”

“I thought that was us?” She raises an eyebrow at him through the mirror.

“Nah, we’re more like the nightmare team…” He hums while continuing to twist locks of her hair together. “In a totally rad way of course.”

“Totally…” She agrees loftily, smile still gracing her lips.

Taako finished his work in silence, the two of them basking in each other’s warm glow of happiness until there’s a soft knock on the door.

“Come in.” Lup calls, and Lucretia shuffles in, closing the door lightly behind her and keeping a bit of distance between the two of them and herself. It’s been months since Lup’s been back but ever since Lucretia’s been skittish around both her and Barry, even after they both assured her that everything was in the past and they loved her all the same.

“The last of the guests have arrived, I was wondering if you two needed any help in here before it’s time to start.”

“Is it that late already?” Lup asks. “Taako you gotta hustle, I know how long it takes you to get ready on a _good_ day.”

“Are you sure? I still gotta finish your hair and help you with your dress-”

“Luc will help me!” She interrupts, turning around in her chair to look at Lucretia directly and give her a blinding smile. “Right?”

“O-of course.” She replies, seeming to have a hard time looking at her directly. “If you’re sure-”

“I am.” She says, an air of finality surrounding the words. “Now get out of here, Taako, it’s girl’s time.”

She punctuated her words with a playful push against his turned back.

“Fine, fine, yeesh!”

Taako closes the door behind him with a smile on his face. While he actually did have to get ready he was glad for a moment alone for another reason entirely.

Once he gets to another room set aside for them to get dressed he pulls out his stone of farspeech and waits for it to connect while he dumps the contents of an overfull makeup bag onto the counter in front of him and starts rooting through the pile.

“Hello? Taako?” a voice crackles out from the other end.

“Heeey Krav, did you make it out here alright?” Taako was actually a little nervous, sure Lucretia did say everyone made it, but who knows if that included Kravitz or just everyone in the BoB.

“Yes, I’m here. Carey and Killian recognized me and are letting me sit with them for the ceremony.”

“Wow, Carey _and_ Killian? Aren’t you Mr. Popular today.” Taako couldn’t resist a little ribbing at his expense, it had taken a lot of convincing to get him to sit without Taako for the ceremony. Kravitz still felt a bit nervous about the situations with Merle’s arm and Barry and Lup’s bounties, but Taako assured him it was all in the past.

“Ha. Ha.” Kravitz replies dryly and Taako smiles underneath the lipstick he’s applying.

“Ooh, I love your laugh, so melodic. Don’t squander all your enthusiasm now though, I want your full reaction when you see what I’m wearing.”

“Could it possibly be the same dress that’s been hanging on your bedroom door for the last month?”

“Please, you haven’t _seen_ clothes until they’re worn by me.” Taako tells him while contemplating eyeliner, settling on a light line on his upper lids.

He chuckles good-naturedly at that.

“I have no doubt about that.” Kravitz tells him, and the genuine sound of his voice makes Taako’s heart flutter.

“I’ll see you out there, alright?”

“Of course.”

Taako listens to the connection cut off as Kravitz hangs up and goes back to getting ready, Lup was right of course, he did usually take an excessive amount of time to get dressed, but today he already has everything picked out. All there is left to do is slip into his extremely tasteful bridesmaid dress and step out into the world and wait for Lup to shine.

…

When Lup finally walks down the aisle the world seems to stop, and Taako, with perfect clarity, takes in every detail of the moment. She steps into view and the late-afternoon light hits her like a follow spot. Her white gown glows against her warm brown skin as does the baby’s breath in her dark hair. She looks beautiful as usual, with her personality showing through in the bouquet of multicolored wildflowers and her umbrastaff swinging from a sash on her hip. Taako watches and sees her eyes glint with determination and her mouth quirks up as she sets her sights on Barry.

Barry who is just barely keeping it together. Tears are gathering in the corners of his eyes while Magnus holds out a handkerchief to him, even though he’s already sobbing himself, in a way that might be unseemly if they didn’t all know him so well, but because they all do it’s endearing instead. Merle helps out as well, putting a hand to Barry’s hip to ground him until Lup gets there and Davenport’s eyes twinkle as he watches the interaction.

Taako glances to his left for a moment to catch sight of Lucretia, whose face is lit up with one of her perfect and rare smiles. She’s wearing the same red mid length dress as him, matching the other boys in their red jackets and making it altogether feel more like a reunion for the crew.

With the entire IPRE gang taking part in the wedding the audience was rather scarce. Just a few of the BoB employees who actually wanted to stick around after the truth came out about what they were doing and the few people considered family. Taako glances into the rows of chairs and immediately locks eyes with Kravitz. He did sit in the same row as Carrey and Killan, just as promised, but there are two other additions, No.3113 and Angus are actually sitting between him and the other girls, Angus slightly in Kravitz’s seat to make room. Kravitz flashes him a shy smile and Taako smiles back, pretending he doesn’t feel his heart clench at the image of him and Angus, who had only become more like a son to him in the prior months, sitting together so casually, like all the floating parts of his life were finally converging into something congruent with each other.

He was knocked out of that thought when Merle started talking, Lup had reached the canopy of vines and flowers and stood underneath with Barry, taking his hands in hers and smiling.

Taako and Lucretia stand behind Lup, mirroring Magnus and Davenport’s positions behind Barry and Merle makes them all stand and watch while he rambles on about something only adjacent to what they’re all actually there for until Lup cheerfully reminds him that he’s supposed to be officiating the damned thing.

“Oh! Right, right, right. In that case, I cast Zone of Truth!” And with that he slams him hand down on the Extreme Teen Bible in front of him and gets to the point. “Do you, Lup, take Barry, to have and to hold, as long as you both shall exist?

“You know it!” Lup’s answer is steadfast and lilting with excitement, the enthusiasm making a wave of laughter fall over the group.

“And do you Barry, take Lup, to have and to hold, as long as you both shall exist?”

“Yeah, yeah I do.” Barry agrees, voice a low rumble and eyes still wet fixed to Lup’s.

“Then without further ado.” Merle takes a wrapped bottle from behind him and places it between the two.

Lup raises her eyes to meet Barry’s before nodding once and pulling up the hem of her dress, revealing a pair of large combat boots. Barry laughs lightly and nods back, then, together they each bring a foot down, smashing the glass to dust and narrowly missing each other.

Music swells from somewhere and they jump into each other’s arms for a kiss. Merle finishes his proclamation of them as finally _married_ , but no one is listening. All eyes are on the beautiful couple completely engrossed with one another as they raise their joined hands like prize fighters after a great victory.

Taako can feel his eyes burning and the wetness on his face as he watches them run down the aisle hand in hand, but he doesn’t truly realize he’s crying until Lucretia lays a soft hand on his shoulder. He immediately jumps to wipe away his tears in vain, but she’s there holding a handkerchief out to him.

“Thanks.” He tells her gratefully, grabbing it to dab at his waterline with.

“Of course…” She looks a little hesitant but continues anyway. “I’m sure it can’t be easy…having to give her away.”

The _again_ is unspoken and Lucretia actually looks a little pained at putting it that way.

“No…” Taako agrees, tactfully ignoring the elephant in the room for once. “But, it’s Barry and Lup, ya know? We always knew it was coming, this just makes it official. We’re family, Luc, none of us are going anywhere, not without each other.”

Taako curls a hand around hers, softly squeezing a reminder of their collective love into her skin, and she smiles at him, close lipped but still kind. He feels her delicate hand squeeze back before letting go.

“I’ll let you go now; it looks like there’s someone else who wants your attention.” She turns away gracefully and Taako looks around until he spots Kravtiz a few yards away, standing endearingly awkwardly and looking at him.

Taako motions him over and he straightens up a little self-consciously before walking to him.

“Hey, how’d it go from the cheap seats?” Taako asks him.

“It was beautiful, Taako.” Kravitz tells him, and Taako can tell it’s genuine from that goofy smile he gets on his face. “How are you feeling?”

Taako knows he’s referring to the tear tracks on his face, but it’s too much to get into at the moment so he goes for what’s mostly the truth.

“Great, actually! I’m really happy for them…Really happy for her.”

“She looked beautiful, that was your doing I assume?” Kravitz says changing the subject, really too tactful for his own good.

“Geez, are you trying to compliment me or hit on the bride? Wait for the dust to settle a little, homie!” Taako pushes a hand against his chest playfully, letting it linger a bit more than he would with anyone else.

He chuckles, a little more gracious than Taako probably deserves.

“Yes, you’ve caught me. Our entire relationship was an elaborate ruse so I could steal your sister from Barry.”

Taako is glad to joke back.

“Well, unfortch you’re about a hundred years too late on that one so you’ll have to settle for me.”

“Oh, I doubt anyone who got to have you would call that settling.”

Taako blushes and pushes away the urge to tell him to shut up.

“You just know exactly what to say, don’t you?” He says instead.

“Less and less so when I’m around you, my dear.”

Kravitz closes the already quickly shrinking space between them to press a kiss against his lips, hands finding Taako’s hips and pulling him in closer. Taako feels himself melt against Kravitz and he winds his arms up around his neck to tangle in his long hair.

“Hey, Taako!” Lup calls from the double doors of the ballroom. “You wanna stop making out and pay attention to your sister’s wedding?”

Taako breaks away to look at his sister, noticing that everyone else that had been watching the wedding was gone, probably inside to watch some other way these emotionally unstable freaks could embarrass themselves.

“Not really!” He calls to her before turning back to Kravitz. “Now where were we?”

“She’s right, we should head inside.” He says witch a chuckle.

Taako fixes him with a long look before sighing in agreement.

“Fine, fine, but I’m blaming you for whatever happens in there.”

“Of course.” Kravitz laughs, not taking his warning seriously, and together they walk towards the double doors of the ballroom.

As soon as they walk in Taako knows he’s been played. The main ballroom is silent and there’s a crowd to the left of them, watching Barry and Lup do something, but before Taako can figure out what she’s launching the flowers in her hands at full force over her shoulders. The bouquet arcs perfectly over the crowd and right at where he and Kravitz had just walked in.

The stems of the colorful bouquet touch down into Kravitz’s fingers and he blushes wildly, the tips of his ears and high cheekbones turning a bright red while his fingers clench and unclench around the flowers, unsure of what to do next. Taako shoots a look at his sister who makes exaggerated kissy faces at the two of them like she didn’t just make them sit and watch her and _Barold Bluejeans_ profess their (literal) undying love for each other.

The sight should be offensive but Taako is too delighted by the sight of his sister and Barry goofing together and laughing it off to care. Instead of firing back anything he takes Kravitz’s unusually warm face in his hands for an over the top smooch, making the crowd in front of them laugh and whoop in amusement.

When they separate, the bouquet is a little worse for wear after being crushed between them, but Taako pulls out a poppy with deft fingers and places it in Kravitz’s pulled back locs just behind his ear. Kravitz laughs and pulls a matching one out for Taako’s hair as well.

Taako snorts at the mushiness of the entire interaction and looks back up to where Lup had been standing but she was gone.

Replacing her, Magnus and Barry appear, rolling a piano up the ramp to the slight stage area and start setting it up. Taako’s momentary confusion about this melts away when he sees his sister climb up holding a violin. His heart stutters at the realization of what they’re about to do and he quickly tries to catch the eye of anyone else who understands. No one is in the crowd though, not Magnus or Merle or Lucretia or even Davenport. Instead the few wedding guests he sees start to pair off and dance to the beginning of the sickeningly sweet melody.

Lup coaxes a softly keening note from her violin and Barry hesitantly plucks at his keys, they’re both recreating the song they wrote to tell the story of their love and Taako is just as overwhelmed as he was then. He must have grown visibly frantic because Kravitz grabs his hand and looks at him, concerned.

“Are you alright?”

Taako thinks for a moment, wondering what he could possibly say.

“Just…just listen, my man.”

Kravitz nods and looks back to where Lup and Barry are playing and Taako watches his face morph into understanding. Kravitz watches on transfixed for the entirety of the song, the only noticeable movement his hand jumping in time slightly to the music where it hangs by his hip. The soft notes must overtake him for him to not even notice what he’s doing and it endears Taako to him even more.

When the last triumphant notes leave their instruments he bursts into applause, seemingly without even thinking, then turns to Taako.

“ _Wow_.” Kravitz chokes out, tears falling down his face yet somehow looking more beautiful than ever.

“Yeah…” Taako agrees lightly. “Wow.”


End file.
